Helvi'dius
son of the younger Helvidius Priscus [PRISCUS HELVIDIUS, 2] by his first wife.
He had the title of consularis, but his name does not appear on the Fasti.
Warned by the fate of his father and his father's friends, under Nero and his successors, Helvidius concealed equal talents and similar principles in retirement.
But he had written an interlude (exodium ), entitled
Paris and Oenone, and the informers of Domitian's reign detected in the nymph and the faithless Trojan the emperor's divorce from one of his many wives. Helvidius was accused, condemned, and even dragged to prison, by the obsequious senate (Tac.
Agric. 45), whither the order for his execution soon followed. After Domitian's decease, the younger Pliny, an intimate friend of Helvidius, avenged his death and the cause of public justice at once, by impeaching Publicius Certus, a senator of praetorian rank, who had been the foremost in seconding the delators.
The account of the impeachment, which was afterwards published, and was written, in imitation of Demosthenes against Meidias, is given by Pliny in a letter to Quadratus. (
Ep. 9.13.)
A death, so timely as to be deemed voluntary, released Certus from condemnation. Helvidius married Anteia, daughter of P. Anteius, put to death by Nero in A. D. 57. [P. ANTEIUS, p. 183a.] By her he had a son, who survived him, and two daughters, who died very young in childbed.
Further Information
Plin. Ep. 4.21,
9.13;
Suet. Dom. 10; Tac.
Agric. 45.
[
W.B.D]
